The disclosed embodiments relate generally to document management capability and, in one illustrative embodiment, to a system for managing the size of a print job in a print shop.
Conventional print shops typically are organized in a fashion so that related equipment is grouped together. For example, printing equipment may be grouped and located together, while finishing equipment may be grouped and located in another location. Thus, the print shop may be set up to have a printing department, a finishing department, and other departments corresponding to the type of process or operation that is performed within that department. The organization of a print shop is typically often independent of print job complexity, print job mix and total volume of print jobs.
When a new print job arrives, the print job sequentially passes through each department until the print job is completed. The conventional approach leads to significant time delays and increased work-in-progress and inventory costs.
Various improvements for print shop operation have been proposed, several of which have been published as:                U.S. Patent Publication 20020071134 to Jackson et al. Published on Jun. 13, 2002 Entitled, System and Method for Converting Print Jobs Stored in Print shop Job Description Language Files into Print shop Workflow        U.S. Patent Publication 20020129081 to Rai et al. Published on Sep. 12, 2002 Entitled, Production Server Architecture and Methods for Automated Control of Production Document Management        U.S. Patent Publication 20050065830 to Rai et al. Published on Mar. 24, 2005 Entitled, A System and Method for The Acquisition and Analysis of Data for Print Shop Performance Evaluation and Adjustment        
U.S. Pat. No. 6,805,502 to Rai et al. discloses an approach for dividing a print job into sub-jobs or “batches.” The batches are separately processed so as to improve the total turnaround time that is required to complete the processing of the print job. The patent describes methods for selecting a batch size for batches so as to reduce the total turnaround time for the print job.
The pertinent portions of the above-cited publications are incorporated herein by reference.
It would be desirable, for the sake of achieving on-time percentage in a document production environment, to provide a technique that both simply and effectively addresses the problems associated with one or more relatively oversized jobs that, when released into a document production environment, cause lateness among related jobs. While the approaches disclosed by the above-mentioned references are well suited for their intended purpose, it would be desirable to provide a scheme that both identifies relatively oversized jobs and facilitates appropriate processing of the same to improve performance of the document production environment.
In accordance with one aspect of the disclosed embodiments, there is provided a system for managing the size of a job to be processed in a print shop. The print shop includes a plurality of autonomous cells with each autonomous cell including at least one device capable of processing at least a part of the job, and the job size management system includes: (a) a scheduling tool for generating a list including a plurality of jobs; (b) a processor operatively associated with the scheduling tool, the processor: (i) assigning a job size related value to each one of the plurality of jobs so that the plurality of jobs are corresponded respectively with a set of job size related values, (ii) using the set of job size related values to calculate a control limit, and (iii) for each job size related value exceeding the control limit, splitting the job corresponding with the job size related value exceeding the control limit into n number of sub-jobs for processing at the plurality of autonomous cells.
In accordance with another aspect of the disclosed embodiments, there is provided a system for managing the size of a job to be processed in a document management workflow. The job size management system includes a queue for listing a plurality of jobs and a processor operatively associated with the queue. In practice, the processor (i) assigns a value to each one of the plurality of jobs so that the plurality of jobs are corresponded respectively with a set of values, (ii) uses the set of values to calculate a threshold, and, (iii) for each value exceeding the threshold, splits the job corresponding with the value exceeding the threshold into n number of sub-jobs.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the disclosed embodiments, there is provided a method for managing job size. The method includes: providing a list including a plurality of jobs; assigning a value to each one of the plurality of jobs so that the plurality of jobs are corresponded respectively with a set of values; setting a threshold; and, for each value exceeding the threshold, splitting the job corresponding with the value exceeding the threshold into n number of sub-jobs.